You can still have fun with radioactivity today. Go out and buy a big bag of Brazil nuts (which are seeds BTW, not nuts) and take them with you in your pocket to the visitors centre of any nuclear power plant and watch what happens - Brazil nuts are naturally radioactive and have a half-life of 1.2 billion years - you'll be saying "unplanned scrub shower" before you know it. Bananas are also radioactive but not quite as likely to set off radiation alarms.

ElPresidente:You can still have fun with radioactivity today. Go out and buy a big bag of Brazil nuts (which are seeds BTW, not nuts) and take them with you in your pocket to the visitors centre of any nuclear power plant and watch what happens - Brazil nuts are naturally radioactive and have a half-life of 1.2 billion years - you'll be saying "unplanned scrub shower" before you know it. Bananas are also radioactive but not quite as likely to set off radiation alarms.

So that's why Brazil nuts made my mouth tingle; thought I was allergic.

BarkingUnicorn:ElPresidente: You can still have fun with radioactivity today. Go out and buy a big bag of Brazil nuts (which are seeds BTW, not nuts) and take them with you in your pocket to the visitors centre of any nuclear power plant and watch what happens - Brazil nuts are naturally radioactive and have a half-life of 1.2 billion years - you'll be saying "unplanned scrub shower" before you know it. Bananas are also radioactive but not quite as likely to set off radiation alarms.

So that's why Brazil nuts made my mouth tingle; thought I was allergic.

Eben Byers, a 49-year-old wealthy Pittsburgh industrialist, was looking to ease the chronic pain he was having in his arm. The year was 1927, and Eben was advised by his doctor to try a powerful new drug to cure his pain: Radithor. He became hooked. It appeared to not only heal his pain, but seemingly rekindled his sexual vitality.

It was two and a half years after regular use of Radithor, when Eben began complaining of chronic headaches and weight loss. Shortly thereafter, his teeth fell out, holes formed in his skull, and his mouth literally collapsed. Covering Eben's case, an article in the Wall Street Journal ran the headline: "The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off."

You'd have a point if the FDA didn't have an unacceptably high rate of both type 1 and type 2 errors. I'm skeptical about the proteins in aggressively bred dwarf wheat, to say nothing of GMOs, and I'd really like to try sublingual immunotherapy.

chrylis:FDA didn't have an unacceptably high rate of both type 1 and type 2 errors

Are you implying that no oversight has a better history? Government has it's problems, but it seems to have a mechanism to work those out. A good example would be the laws against radioactive toothpaste.

UsikFark:pellies: Are you implying that no oversight has a better history?

Industry will voluntarily correct their actions after education about regulations. Companies large and small adhere to best practices.

I envy you in you ignorant bliss

/because lead and asbestos are so healthy, we've globally stopped using it completely//people and companies will use what's cheapest (or most gimmicky) to get the job done, whether short term our long term if they can get away with it

chrylis:You'd have a point if the FDA didn't have an unacceptably high rate of both type 1 and type 2 errors. I'm skeptical about the proteins in aggressively bred dwarf wheat, to say nothing of GMOs, and I'd really like to try sublingual immunotherapy.

Yes. We get that GMOs frighten you, Simple Caveman Lawyer. It still makes the FDA far better than a world of no regulation, and FAR FAR better than what it was when the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1907 was put into law.

As much as I want to laugh at the ignorance of the time period, we currently produce over 1000 new chemical compounds every year. The percentage of those that are thoroughly tested before being put into use is woefully small.

Best practice being if the shiat hits the fan clean up quick. There is little to no concern for safety beyond what is already known. Without regulating bodies there was nothing but trouble. Show me the history of free market best practices before an incident. I have a few do you?

Nice try. I'm not frightened of genetic engineering generally, and I'm usually the one pointing out that humans have been selectively breeding and even crossbreeding for millennia, but it seems to me that if we're going to have a massive bureaucracy telling us what sorts of things we can and can't put in our body regardless of how well-informed we are, at least direct insertions from crops humans haven't traditionally consumed should have some level of eye kept on them.

hardinparamedic:It still makes the FDA far better than a world of no regulation, and FAR FAR better than what it was when the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1907 was put into law.

But was that because of the FDA? I'm perfectly interested in seeing evidence to that effect, but just like air and water were on a dramatically cleaner trajectory well before the Clean Stuff Acts were passed, and federal and state statutory regulations may actually have interfered with getting some waterways cleaned up, increased prosperity and public awareness were already driving improvements in food safety at that time. Furthermore, how do you account for the harm done by preventing safe, effective medical treatments from being made available in the United States because I can't choose to use unapproved drugs at my own risk like I can use non-UL electronics?

Pointy Tail of Satan:And how we have homeopathy, chiropractors, and Jenny McCarthy to deal with. Bad crap never goes away, it just changes it's spots.

Well to be fair on Homeopathy it never actually poisoned anyone and in retrospect is now considered successful because it at least gave your immune system a chance to be beat any infections without the help of mercury injections or being bled to death by leeches.still we now know better and it's bunk. Jenny McCarthy should just shut her fat stupid mouth and f**k off.

chrylis:Nice try. I'm not frightened of genetic engineering generally, and I'm usually the one pointing out that humans have been selectively breeding and even crossbreeding for millennia

Then why are you afraid of technology that has been developed and used since the late 1950s? Curious, this...

chrylis:but it seems to me that if we're going to have a massive bureaucracy telling us what sorts of things we can and can't put in our body regardless of how well-informed we are, at least direct insertions from crops humans haven't traditionally consumed should have some level of eye kept on them.

chrylis:But was that because of the FDA? I'm perfectly interested in seeing evidence to that effect, but just like air and water were on a dramatically cleaner trajectory well before the Clean Stuff Acts were passed, and federal and state statutory regulations may actually have interfered with getting some waterways cleaned up, increased prosperity and public awareness were already driving improvements in food safety at that time.

Please observe. And go read a damn history textbook. Your statement that "things were on a better trajectory" is demonstrably false with even a cursory review of the literature of the time. Patent drugs were legally sold which claimed to outright cure X and Y, and did nothing of the sort while containing toxic ingredients, like arsenic, cyanide, and industrial chemicals which were fatal to the people that took them, or contained addicting substances like Cocaine or Heroin.

chrylis:Furthermore, how do you account for the harm done by preventing safe, effective medical treatments from being made available in the United States because I can't choose to use unapproved drugs at my own risk like I can use non-UL electronics?

Science, in terms of industry, seems to follow a trend with some things like this.

1. Discover something new2. Exploit it with industry in every product possible2a. Profit3. Discover later that it's dangerous as all Fark4. Get the government to regulate it's existence, and have it banned.5. Find something new to replace it6. Wash, rinse, wipe hands on pants, repeat.

Radiation is just one thing. Lead is probably #2 on the list. At least those are natural. CFCs, and some of the toxic gases we've created are anything but natural.

If I recall correctly, the idea was that radioactivity was the amazing missing nutrient that made spring water so wonderful but eluded attempts to bottle it. Don't worry, our generations is probably doing something like this too, but we simply don't know about it yet.